(Article
Review)
Educational
Skills in the 21 Century
Skills are considered to be the most important parts of
the students’ success in their lives. These skills are important both in
societal norm and employment. In the 21 century education, students need to
acquire both soft and hard skills in order to respond to market workforce.
What skills are needed in the 21 century?
Based on the World Economic Forum in 2015[1] , there are three broad
categories of skills such as foundational skills known as literacy and numeracy
which included scientific literacy, ICT literacy ,financial literacy and
cultural and civic literacy. Foundation literacies represent how students apply
core skills to everyday tasks and these skills are the starting path toward the
next skills.
Competencies describe
how students approach complex challenges. For example, critical thinking is
the ability to identify, analyse and evaluate situations, ideas and information
in order to formulate responses to problems. Creativity is the ability
to imagine and devise innovative new ways of addressing problems, answering questions
or expressing meaning through the application, synthesis or repurposing of
knowledge. Communication and collaboration involve working in
coordination with others to convey information or tackle problems. Competencies
such as these are essential to the 21st-century workforce, where being able to
critically evaluate and convey knowledge, as well as work well with a team, has
become the norm.
Character qualities describe
how students approach their changing environment. Amid rapidly changing
markets, character qualities such as persistence and adaptability ensure
greater resilience and success in the face of obstacles. Curiosity and initiative
serve as starting points for discovering new concepts and ideas. Leadership
and social and cultural awareness involve constructive interactions
with others in socially, ethically and culturally appropriate ways.
While Maya Bialik&Charles Fadel,2015[2], there are four dimensions
of an education: Knowledge , skills , character and metacognition. Knowledge
must strike a better balance between traditional and modern subjects as well as
interdisciplinarity. Skills related to the use of the knowledge and engage in a
feedback loop with knowledge. Character qualities describe how one engage with and
behaves in the world. Metacognition fosters the process of self-reflection and
learning how to learn as well as the building of other three dimensions.
Another skill needed to be success in the
21 century is the digital skills. These skills are included (1) the basic online
skills require to get online, navigate through the websites, download and use
the App on phones and to fulfill the basic IT tasks at work (2) traditional IT
skills associated with the “IT department” , maintenance of office systems and
equipment.(3) computer science skills understanding the principles of
information and computation, how digital system work and how to put these
knowledge to use through programing(4)digital commerce skills enables
businesses and customers to find each other more quickly, to transact with each
other at lower cost and drive greater confidence. Digital commerce is a key
driver for economic growth.(5)data science skills(Big data) and the ability to
get hold of , organize and analyze data to extract valuable insights is a skill
that is growing in importance for service based economy.[3]
In conclusion, skills are essential not
only in the society but also in the workplace in every day tasks, so to provide
these effective skills to all the students, we must adopt them in the schools from
lower educational institutes to tertiary educational institutes. I think to
start it is better to consider about curriculum.
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